Chapter Ninety-Four: San Van Gonza

The sky was drab and gray, the wild grass barren and tangled, and just as in the film, the village of San Venganza exuded a sense of utter desolation and decay. This place, abandoned for more than a century, was saturated with complex forces. There was a whisper in the air, as if something unseen was slowly devouring every living thing that ventured near. The clouds that choked the sky were not merely water vapor; they were formed of endless resentment.

More than a thousand fallen souls, consumed by remorse and hatred, had over the decades condensed into this malefic presence. For over a hundred and fifty years, the negative emotions of these souls had transformed this village into a space akin to hell itself.

Even someone like Gu Zhongyan, a seasoned sorcerer, and Su Yan, who possessed the blood of a half-demon, felt a deep unease and discomfort the moment they entered the ruins of San Venganza. Cautiously, the two advanced until they reached the heart of the ruins, halting before a three-story church.

The church’s foundation was high, and before the doors lay a cemetery, the ground crowded with countless crosses, a thousand graves scattered across the open space. The church’s walls had long since lost their plaster; beneath, not lime but dark brown, mold-encrusted bloodstains were exposed. After a century, these traces resembled demonic graffiti, corroding what was meant to be a sacred site.

Neither was a devout believer, nor held much affection for heaven, but both had once been sheltered by a priest. Confronted with this scene of desecration, they could not help but frown.

“Let’s go,” said Gu Zhongyan. Pausing at the threshold, he pushed open the church’s rotting doors, the shriek of ancient hinges echoing as he stepped inside. Su Yan quickly followed.

Once within, Gu Zhongyan did not immediately produce the San Venganza Contract. Instead, he drew from his pocket a small crucible, no larger than a child’s toy. Yet anything Gu Zhongyan revealed at such a moment could hardly be a mere plaything.

This tiny crucible was the only surviving item from the five he had once obtained in a trade with Egghead—none other than the alchemical cauldron of Angus, god of love and magic in Celtic myth.

Setting the crucible on the ground, Gu Zhongyan aimed his wand at it, tapped lightly, and spoke an incantation.

“Engorgio!”

With a bang, the crucible, once the size of a palm, swelled a hundredfold, becoming as vast as the great cauldrons before ancient temples.

“Come forth, my servants!” Gu Zhongyan commanded, waving his hand. The cauldron’s mouth yawned open as if into another world, and a shadow, taller than the cauldron itself, rose as if breaking the surface of water—a Dementor.

Cloaked in black, tall and gaunt, its body gray and cold, the creature radiated an icy dread. With the first Dementor’s emergence, the church’s chilling gloom deepened.

Then came a second, a third…more than eighty Dementors in all spilled forth, filling the church’s floor and even the air above. If not for their ability to fly, the small church could never have contained so many.

Only then did Gu Zhongyan finally produce the San Venganza Contract. The moment the scrap of parchment appeared, it was as if the village itself came alive. The clouds above writhed in a furious vortex, like the eye of a storm. The whispers in the air became wails of agony, pure malice and negative emotion surging in waves.

Yet before this onslaught could reach the church at the village’s heart, the eighty Dementors formed an unyielding barrier. Like stars encircling the moon, they surrounded the two men at the center, a living wall holding back the storm of malevolence.

“Go and seal off the area. Don’t come back unless I call for you,” Gu Zhongyan said, glancing at Su Yan.

The boy nodded. Air currents swirled around him, lifting his small form swiftly from San Venganza.

Then, a tempest erupted—gale winds, torrents of rain, thunder and lightning, snow and sleet—all blending into a natural barricade, shrouding the ruins and ensuring that none would stumble in unawares to disrupt Gu Zhongyan’s design.

As Su Yan manipulated the weather to seal the village, Gu Zhongyan moved through the church, wand dancing as he inscribed intricate magical arrays. Power flowed from him like water, arcane runes etched into the ruins, a vast formation unfolding at his feet.

With all in readiness, Gu Zhongyan drew a deep breath and at last recited the contract’s incantation.

Thunder rumbled, clouds churned, and countless grains of dust were swept into a frenzy by invisible winds. The village, abandoned for a century, seemed to detonate.

Though unseen, a chill greater than even a Dementor’s swept forth. Even prepared as he was, Gu Zhongyan felt ice crawl up his spine, as if his very soul would soon freeze.

Under the contract’s power, more than a thousand fallen souls merged with the village awakened.

Considered by the Heart-Eater Demon to be the key weapon against Mephisto, these thousand souls—though perhaps not as formidable as legend claimed—were not to be underestimated. Gu Zhongyan’s exhaustive preparations spoke to their menace.

One by one, wailing spirits—ghastly as mummified corpses—erupted from the stone walls, the wells, the graveyard, every corner of the village, shrieking as they hurled themselves at the only living man present.

Like a city besieged by the undead, these hideous spirits unleashed a torrent of malice so potent that, though insubstantial, they began to warp reality itself.

Each fallen soul was darkness born from a pinnacle of light, their power rivaling even that of Dementors.

Yet, confronted by such a harrowing spectacle, Gu Zhongyan remained calm, making no move to defend himself. Instead, he closed his eyes and opened his innermost mind.

His sea of consciousness lay open and tranquil. From within, a silvery sapling swayed, flickering like a candle in the night, further provoking the ravenous spirits.

The fallen could not feel joy—eternally lost in torment as if under a Dementor’s kiss. The Patronus’s innate positive aura, for these souls steeped in a century and a half of hatred, was as irresistible as purest powder to an addict.

The earth shook violently, the Patronus’s power like a fuse igniting the accumulated evil of a hundred years.

Although the eye could not see it, the devastation was palpable, as if a bomb had exploded in the forsaken village.